Finding female ancestors often challenges researchers! DNA–both autosomal and mitochondrial–is a powerful tool for identifying the often-hidden women in our family tree, and case studies–illustrations of how researchers have solved particular kinds of problems–help us learn how to use new methods and tools in our own research. Here is...
In a previous blog post, I described the hypothesis I’ve been working on: three men named Mackin–Christopher, John, and James–who lived in the Madison, Wisconsin, area in the 1860s were related to each other, perhaps brothers. I have researched all three men and their descendants, and initiated a DNA...
Earlier this week Blaine Bettinger posted on “The Danger of Distant Matches.”[1. Blaine Bettinger, “The Danger of Distant Matches,” 6 January 2017, The Genetic Genealogist (http://thegeneticgenealogist.com/2017/01/06/the-danger-of-distant-matches/ : accessed 7 January 2017). This was a follow-up to an earlier post, “Small Matching Segments–Friend or Foe?,” 2 December 2014 (http://thegeneticgenealogist.com/2014/12/02/small-matching-segments-friend-foe/ :...
My husband’s most distant ancestor in his surname line is Christopher Mackin. Christopher was born in Ireland 10 August 1821 and first appears...
My recent revisit to some ten-year-old genealogy work resulted in a discovery that changed my understanding of the history of the family I was researching. Ten years ago, I researched the family of John Clark and his wife Sarah (Neville) Shidler Clark, parents of my husband’s great-grandmother Sophia Mary...
